Troy Gua, Do You See Me? (Yes Troy, Clear As the Day)

Troy Gua is asking if you see him. Visibility matters, and he wants to gauge the depth of your vision and his - can you see past a cultivated persona to get to the human beneath?

To borrow a phrase from someone dear, genuine identity is everything or nothing in a world where backspace is king. As a culture, we're blogged, MySpaced, Facebooked, and Photoshopped to death, learn how to pose from America's Next Top Model, and how to act (or not) from celebrities and reality TV. Through the internet we have an ultimate window into the worlds of others - our voyeurism is candid and shameless. But while spying, we control the window through which we're seen. We can impress, seduce, compare, ask, claim or do just about anything. In this case, after we get through “Do You See Me?” we might have to address “Do You Know Me?”

At first glance, knowing isn't the important part. The name, or as Troy deftly points out, the label is the important part. We're living in a world of self-made brands. Recently I was talking with a friend about Urban Outfitters as the one-stop-shop for an entire lifestyle. It's scary. The UO brand could feasibly become a personal one, from the books on the shelf and art on the wall to the comb in your hair and shoes on your feet. With each successive click of the edit (or checkout) key, we create a more personalised brand .

Despite this branding, it seems that once an entire culture starts going down the backspace/edit route, anonymity emerges. There are so many faces, so much content that the internet is an ocean of people we see every day without any idea who they really are. Think of the busiest street/bus/train you've ever used on a regular basis, like say, your morning commute. If you multiply this in the context of social media, it becomes a factorial equation. Our networks are larger than they have ever been, reaching farther across the globe than ever before. If you see someone you've never met, will you ever really know them? Does it matter? Is your interaction as relevant as if you were standing face to face? I would argue that it may not be as profound (though it might be), but it is no less significant a connection.So it's possible to say that if you see me, then eventually, you might know me. But only if you (I) want (you) to.

Troy is pulling in his networks to yield a bounty, creating a map, and tracking his success. In this show he reveals inevitability -- the veneer pulls away from the core, imperfections emerge, the person behind the mask comes forward by virtue of being who they are. Unlike his Pop Hybrid series which is graphic, slick, and pure fantasy, Gua's newest portraits are messy and contend with reality; actual and imagined.

The entire show is filled with an almost heartbreaking sense of humour - a blank Facebook portrait in thick impasto, a riff on the Shepard Fairy poster stating "Your Face Here", blanked out yearbook portraits titled "Of Course I Remember You (fingers crossed behind back)", and one of my favourites, "Labels". These all point at some aspect of brand and personality culture in a keenly observant way. Labels have become absolutely proprietary. You can define a geek, nerd, dork, artist, actor, model, techie, [fill in the blank] to such extent that personality itself becomes didactic. All these pieces are sharp, but his greatest successes are found in two different places - glossy large scale portraiture and a small unassuming bowl of signed and dated labels.

The large-scale portraits are of important people in his life - his wife Catherine Gua, Joey Veltkamp, Diana Adams, Greg Lundgren, and of course, himself. Immediately you can see the resin pulling away from the plywood, leaking between tiles to reveal a grid. The work looks messy, but the people are calm and beautiful. Half of each are hidden behind whitewash; foggy and obscured enough for you to project a possibility. The other half is raw, up-close, imperfect, and undeniably a person looking back at you with their own identity. It's what we all do; cultivate a projection and slowly emerge as time peels back the layers.

But the biggest punch was delivered by a small bowl of hand-made pins, each generically titled "LABEL" in a different font (no two alike, of course). The genius of this subversive grab bag was that it didn't appear to be a main piece of work in the show, probably because it was so unassuming and approachable, but it was clearly designed to be about you. All night, a throng of people gathered around the pedestal seeking the generic label which identified them best. Was the attraction because they would take home a free piece of art or was it because this presented them another opportunity to brand themselves? Which font represented who they were or who they wanted to be? I looked up from my frenzied digging to notice almost everyone in the packed gallery had their own "unique" generic label pinned proudly to their chest. As we all do, every day.

You have one week left to see Troy Gua's work at Vermillion Gallery on 11th Ave E, Capitol Hill. Hours are 4- "late", every day but Monday.

Troy Gua, Labels
acrylic on vinyl, dimensions variable
image courtesy of the artist

Troy Gua, Of Course I Remember You (Fingers Crossed Behind Back)
acrylic on 171 individual 6 x 9" panels
image courtesy of the artist

Troy Gua, Do You See Catherine?

digital transparencies, enamel, and resin on wood panel 48 x 48 x 1”
image courtesy of the artist